The Wall Street Journal - 02.10.2019

** WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2019 ~ VOL. CCLXXIV NO. 79 WSJ.com HHHH $4.

can’t afford a middle-class

lifestyle.

Incomes have risen at a

sluggish pace in the past de-

cade, but car prices have

grown rapidly. New techno-

logical and safety features,

such as larger and more so-

phisticated multimedia dis-

plays, have made even the

most basic cars more expen-

sive. U.S. consumers have

also veered toward pricier

rides such as sport-utility ve-

hicles that tend to dominate

auto showrooms. The result

is that consumers are seeking

bigger loans than ever to

purchase a car.

A lending machine has

revved up in response, mak-

ing it possible for more

Americans to procure a vehi-

Please turn to page A

DJIA 26573.04g343.79 1.3% NASDAQ 7908.68g1.1% STOXX 600 387.99g1.3% 10-YR. TREAS. À7/32, yield 1.651% OIL $53.62g$0.45 GOLD $1,482.00À$16.30 EURO $1.0933 YEN 107.

To Declutter,

First Get

Lots of Books

iii

Lifestyle gurus

compete to peddle

the simple life

BYELLENGAMERMAN

Bookshelves have become

cluttered with books on all

kinds of decluttering.

Global lifestyle philosophies

are doing battle over the best

path not just to orderly clos-

ets, but to organized thoughts

and neater emotional spaces.

Readers have been peddled

the essentials of simplicity

with the magic of Ikigai (Japa-

nese reason for being), Sisu

(Finnish resilience) and Lagom

(Swedish moderation).

Ichigo ichie, pronounced

itchy-GO itchy-A, is a Japanese

concept about making the

most of life’s moments. Keep a

journal describing different

Please turn to page A

Source: FactSet

Indexandshare-priceperformanceonTuesday

5

• 
  


• 
  


• 
  


• 
  


• 
  
  
  
  • 
    
  
  
  
  

0

%

10 a.m. noon 2 p.m. 4

S&P

Schwab

TDAmeritrade

E*Trade

Harvard University’s under-

graduate admissions process

doesn’t intentionally discrimi-

nate against Asian-American

applicants, a federal judge

ruled, a victory for the univer-

sity that is expected to be ap-

pealed as high as the Supreme

Court.

In a 130-page ruling on

Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Al-

lison Burroughs found that

Harvard’s practices were “not

perfect” and could use im-

provements, including implicit

bias training for admissions of-

ficers, but said “the Court will

not dismantle a very fine ad-

missions program that passes

constitutional muster, solely

because it could do better.”

The school’s admissions

process is in line with Su-

preme Court precedents and

doesn’t violate federal civil

rights law, the judge found.

The ruling came just shy of

a year after the judge heard

three weeks of trial testimony

in Boston. Harvard’s admis-

sions dean and other witnesses

defended the university against

Please turn to page A

BYMELISSAKORN

Walk into an auto dealer-

ship these days and you

might walk out with a seven-

year car loan.

That means monthly pay-

ments that last well past

when the brake pads give out

and potentially beyond when

the car gets traded in for a

new one. About a third of

auto loans for new vehicles

taken in the first half of 2019

had terms of longer than six

years, according to credit-re-

porting firm Experian PLC. A

decade ago, that number was

less than 10%.

Car loans that are increas-

ingly stretched out are a pro-

nounced sign that some

American middle class buyers

BYBENEISEN

ANDADRIENNEROBERTS

WASHINGTON—Attorney

General William Barr called

President Trump in April with

a question: What was Rudy

Giuliani doing?

Mr. Trump had just avoided

criminal charges with the re-

lease of former special counsel

Robert Mueller’s report on

Russian electoral interference.

But Mr. Giuliani was on televi-

sion attacking former White

House counsel Don McGahn, a

longtime friend of the attorney

general who had testified to

investigators about some of

the most notable incidents in

the report, including Mr.

Trump’s efforts to seek Mr.

By Rebecca Ballhaus ,

Sadie Gurman ,

Andrew Restuccia

and Michael C. Bender

Americans Buy Cars

With Piles of Debt

Booming financing, stretched-out loans,

are signs of middle-class indebtedness

Judge Backs

Harvard’s

Admissions

Policies

U.S. factory activity con-

tracted for the second straight

month in September to hit a

10-year low, spurring a broad

stock-market decline on con-

cerns abut the health of the

economy.

The manufacturing readings

were among other data points

released Tuesday suggesting a

global slowdown, as trade

flows are set to grow this year

at the weakest pace since the

financial crisis.

The Institute for Supply

Management reported its man-

ufacturing index fell to 47.8 in

September, the lowest level

since June 2009, from 49.1 the

prior month. Readings below

50 indicate contraction, while

those above signify expansion.

The August result marked the

first drop in three years.

U.S. stock indexes fell after

release of the data, with the

S&P 500 losing more than 1%

in afternoon trading.

“Thank the trade war, which

means no improvement is likely

anytime soon,” Ian Shepherd-

Please turn to page A

BYAMARAOMEOKWE

ANDPAULHANNON

Trade

Friction

Weighs

On U.S.

Factories

Ukraine Probe

 House seeks to question

two State Department

officials............................... A

Mueller’s dismissal.

Why, Mr. Barr wanted to

know, was the president’s pri-

vate lawyer making a spectacle

of himself rather than declar-

ing victory in the Mueller in-

vestigation and moving on, ac-

cording to a person who

paraphrased the conversation.

Mr. Barr wanted the president

to tell Mr. Giuliani, in effect, to

knock it off.

Five months later, Mr.

Trump’s two highest-profile

lawyers are again struggling to

get on the same page, this time

in the face of an impeachment

Please turn to page A

Barr, Giuliani Tensions

Hinder Trump Defense

Price War Hits Online Trading

Charles Schwab said it would eliminate commissions on online

stock trades, rattling online brokers that have been squeezed by

investors’ resistance to fees for financial services. B

A Hong Kong police officer fired on protesters as demonstrations against China’s Communist Party turned violent Tuesday. An 18-

year-old student was struck in the chest and was in critical condition after surgery. Police said the shooting was in self-defense.

The violence marked an

embarrassment for Beijing,

souring its National Day fes-

tivities despite President Xi

Jinping’s repeated demands

for smooth celebrations. The

ferocity and intensity of the

clashes have left Mr. Xi with a

dilemma as to how the upris-

ing can be contained.

Please turn to page A

antigovernment movement,

which was sparked by opposi-

tion to a bill allowing extradi-

tion to China. The Hong Kong

government in September

scrapped the proposal and has

appealed for calm, but the

movement has drawn momen-

tum from what protesters al-

lege to be police brutality and

a lack of accountability.

Efforts to ease tensions and

weaken protests before Tues-

day’s anniversary failed, with

events in the city upstaging

the celebrations.

high-school student, swung at

him with a metal bar. Other

footage showed the protester

on the ground with blood

spilling from his chest.

The police confirmed the

shooting, saying the officer had

fired at Mr. Tsang in self de-

fense. The teenager underwent

emergency surgery and health

officials said his condition was

critical early Wednesday.

The incident—the first of

its kind since protests erupted

in the city in early June—is

likely to further inflame the

HONG KONG—A police offi-

cer shot a young antigovern-

ment protester in the chest

during the worst day of vio-

lent unrest to hit Hong Kong

in half a century, as Beijing

celebrated the 70th anniver-

sary of Communist Party rule

in mainland China.

Video footage on Tuesday

showed an officer firing his

pistol at close range after

Tsang Chi-kin, an 18-year-old

BYNATASHAKHAN

ANDJOYUWANG

Hong Kong’s Violent Unrest Grows

As Beijing Marks Communist Rule

 Hong Kong district becomes

a combat zone.......................... A

 China narrows weaponry gap

with U.S........................................ A

Salesforce.

#1 CRM.

Ranked #1 for CRM Applications based on

IDC 2018 Revenue Market Share Worldwide.

16.8%

5.6%

5.7%

3.4%

3.5%

salesforce.com/number1CRM

Source:IDC,WorldwideSemiannualSoftwareTracker,April2019.CRMmarketincludesthefollowingIDC-definedfunctional markets: Sales Force Productivity and Management, Marketing Campaign Management, Customer Service,

Contact Center, Advertising and Digital Commerce Applications. © 2019 salesforce.com, inc. All rights reserved.

Salesforce.comisaregisteredtrademarkofsalesforce.com,inc.,asareothernamesandmarks.

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Source: IDC, Worldwide Semiannual

Software Tracker, April 2019.

CONTENTS

Business News.. B3,

Crossword.............. A

Heard on Street. B

Life & Arts....... A11-

Markets.................... B

Opinion.............. A15-

Property Report... B

Sports....................... A

Streetwise.............. B

Technology............... B

U.S. News............. A2-

Weather................... A

World News... A6-8,

s2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

All Rights Reserved

>

What’s

News

 A police officer shot an

antigovernment protester in

the chest during the worst

day of violent unrest in Hong

Kong in half a century, as Bei-

jing celebrated the 70th anni-

versary of Communist Party

rule in mainland China. A

 Harvard’s undergraduate

admissions process doesn’t

intentionally discriminate

against Asian-American ap-

plicants, a judge ruled. A

 Tensions between Giu-

liani and Barr are compli-

cating White House efforts

to build a strategy to keep

the president in office. A

 House leaders set plans

to question two key State

Department officials after

Secretary Pompeo sought

to block the effort. A

 China is increasingly

developing and deploying

indigenous weaponry on a

par with, or in some cases

more advanced than, that

of the U.S. and its allies. A

 North Korea fired two

ballistic missiles off itseast

coast shortly after Pyongyang

and the U.S. said they would

resume nuclear talks. A

 Salazar briefed top

Nike officials on his exper-

iments to manipulate the

use of performance-en-

hancing drugs for track

and field athletes. A

 An appeals court upheld

most parts of a Republican

rollback of Obama-era reg-

ulations governing so-

called net neutrality. A

 A former Dallas police of-

ficer who shot and killed her

upstairs neighbor in 2018 was

found guilty of murder. A

T

he global manufactur-

ing slowdown worsened

last month and trade flows

are set to increase this year

at the weakest pace since

the financial crisis, as tariffs

rise and growth cools. A

 The Dow slumped 1.3% as

the disappointing manu-

facturing data spurred con-

cerns about the health of the

economy. U.S. government-

bond prices surged. B

 Visa and Mastercard are

among partners reconsid-

ering their involvement in

Facebook’s effort to build

a global cryptocurrency-

based payments network. B

 Schwab said it would

eliminate commissions on

online stock trades, extend-

ing a broad-based price war

in the financial sector. B

 Johnson & Johnson

reached a $20.4 million set-

tlementwith two Ohio coun-

ties over its alleged role in

the opioid-addiction crisis. B

 A Credit Suisse -ordered

probe cleared Thiam of in-

volvement in a spy scandal

at the bank and laid primary

blame on a close deputy of

the CEO, who resigned. B

 GM said a parts short-

age stemming from a UAW

strike in the U.S. forced it

to idle a pickup-truck fac-

tory in Silao, Mexico. B

 Ford said it would trans-

fer most of its operations

in India to Mahindra as

part of a joint venture with

the Indian auto maker. B

 U.S. Steel said it would

acquire a stake in Big River,

forging a partnership with

a rival that has threatened

its core business. B

Business&Finance

World-Wide

CAMPUSTVIII, HKUSU